[ntp:questions] Re: keeping ntpd running

Ian Diddams didds2 at excite.com
Thu Sep 25 07:25:05 UTC 2003


"Richard S. Shuford" <shuford at list.stratagy.REM0VE-THlS-PART.com>
wrote in

> If ntpd is found to run for 20 minutes and then quit, what's  
> going on is probably this:  If the ntpd daemon, when starting
> up, finds that the system's internal clock is more than 1000
> seconds different from the time ticks received from external
> sources, ntpd wants a human to figure out why and make an
> intentional clock change; the daemon is programmed not to
> simply trust the external ticks and change the system's clock
> on its own.  So the daemon rather quietly logs a message:
> 
>     time error is way too large (set clock manually)
> 
> and then it gives up.  Without updating the clock.  If left
> to its own devices, it will never succeed, and the system's
> time setting will erode until you have the Temporal Dust Bowl.


Interesting!

So your saying that a system might run for several days apparently
quite happily, but in all that time the clock is actually getting
further away from centralised time rather than closer to it until such
time as it > 1000 seconds out, at which time it fails/dies/stops/gives
up/stops running?


> If you have the "ntpdate" program, you may want to invoke
> it in your start-up script before you try to start "ntpd".

Yeah - this is done.  So at boot/ntpd restart via script, the system
is presumably using centralised time..


ian



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